This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. GENERALIZED INSTRUMENT CONTROL AND AUTOMATION SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT This subproject's general objective is to enhance our ability to acquire data from light and electron microscopes (LM/EM) at the facility as well as at our allied resources, by developing, refining, and applying software technologies to integrate instrumentation, computing, and informatics technologies. Specifically, we aim to increase data acquisition and analysis throughput and increase the quality and extent of information logged about data collection and instrument configuration by leveraging on and expanding our scalable generalized telemicroscopy system (Molina et al., 2005). This system is designed to integrate, organize, and unify the control of imaging instruments and accessories (detectors, stages, etc.) and securely couple their use to advanced cyberinfrastructure, including resources for data management and storage, high-performance computing, and informatics. This software architecture is being extended to integrate instruments of unique value to the mesoscale imaging aims of the Center, in particular the incoming FEI Titan STEM/TEM. Data-driven and computationally enhanced automation schemes will be developed along with supporting services to organize and coordinate the increasingly large data volumes delivered from each instrument. Unifying interfaces are also be developed to simplify how manual, automated, basic, and advanced features are presented to the biomedical researcher. The steps necessary for achievement of these goals leverage, extend, and refine the GTS to integrate key multimodal imaging instruments (local and remote) to enable advanced control and automation for high-throughput mesoscale imaging;increasing our data handling performance and refining session state reporting through refinements to the capabilities of the GTS. Lastly, we shall develop a software prototyping environment to streamline, promote, and simplify the development of novel instrument-based applications, including automation and data-driven feedback schemes.